A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Paz satellite for Madrid-based operator Hisdesat, becoming Spain’s first radar observation satellite as part of the National Earth Observation Program. The satellite is completing a multi-purpose mission, collecting radar imagery for application in national security and defence, civilian applications, science and commercial exploitation. The 1,400-Kilogram satellite carries an X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar capable of delivering imagery at a ground resolution of one meter, capturing around 200 scenes per day. Paz was originally planned to fly on a Dnepr booster, but as the vehicle fell victim to the political conflict between the Ukraine and Russia the mission was moved to a SpaceX Falcon 9 after encountering nearly three years of delays.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch ten Iridium-NEXT mobile communications satellites into Low Earth Orbit in the continued effort to replace the entire heritage Iridium constellation with upgraded satellites supporting global communications, aeronautical monitoring and ship tracking. This is the fifth launch in support of Iridium-NEXT by SpaceX and the first of four Iridium missions planned in 2018 to finish deployment of the operational constellation of 75 satellites, all missions are using Falcon 9 launchers. Iridium-5 will re-use a previously flown Falcon 9, first launched on the Iridium-3 mission.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch five Iridium-NEXT mobile communications satellites and a pair of gravity-sensing satellites into Low Earth Orbit on a shared ride between Iridium Communications and GRACE-FO operators GFZ and NASA. SpaceX has been contracted to deploy 75 Iridium-NEXT satellites with deployment occurring in batches of ten, meaning one Falcon 9 would fly with half a load, leaving surplus performance for a co-passenger. The two GRACE Follow-On Satellites are flying as an extension of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment that has been tracking Earth’s gravitational field since 2002 and is headed into retirement in late 2017. GRACE shows how mass is distributed around the planet and its variation over time, allowing for modeling of Earth’s oceans, geology and climate.

The Iridium satellites are headed to orbit in the continued effort to replace the entire heritage Iridium constellation with upgraded satellites supporting global communications, aeronautical monitoring and ship tracking.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch NASA’s InSight mission on a trajectory for landing on Mars in November 2018 to begin a mission of at least two years using a suite of instruments to study the planet’s interior to better understand the processes the shaped the rocky planets of the solar system, including our own. The mission has the full name of “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport” and employs the overall design of the 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander with a payload suite comprising a high-fidelity seismometer, a self-penetrating heat-flow probe and a rotation and interior structure experiment. InSight is targeting a landing in Elysium Planitia.

The InSight Mission was delayed from the 2016 interplanetary launch window due to a critical fault discovered on the lander’s primary seismic instrument. To send InSight on its way, Atlas V will be flying in its basic 401 configuration without boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.